Overview

• Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla said first-hand experience on the ISS would directly aid Gaganyaan and expressed confidence that someone will soon fly "from our capsule, our rocket, our soil."
• ISRO chief V. Narayanan said the agency’s probing led SpaceX to scrub a launch and later find a dangerous Falcon-9 fuel-line crack that could have caused a catastrophic failure.
• Narayanan indicated the first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission (G1) could lift off by December with the Vyomitra humanoid onboard, as broader human spaceflight testing advances.
• Shukla reported he conducted seven India-conceived microgravity experiments on Axiom-4 and said data are being analyzed with results expected in the coming months.
• After returning to India, Shukla met the prime minister, defence minister and president, and shared ISS imagery and outreach messages as leaders linked the flight to India’s space ambitions.